WASHINGTON — Security surrounding the inauguration of Donald J. Trump is proving to be the most challenging in recent history, according to senior officials involved in its planning, largely because of the same forces of political rancor that shaped the race for the presidency.

On top of the daunting threats to any inaugural ceremony, the three dozen agencies responsible for security at the Jan. 20 festivities are preparing for the possibility of large numbers of protesters flooding the capital, along with what may be nearly a million supporters of Mr. Trump.

The agencies are worried about the possibility of confrontations between groups of Americans still deeply divided over the election — and at a moment when millions of people around the world will be turning their attention to Washington. At the very least, officials said, protests would put additional pressure on the region’s already-stretched security apparatus.

“To paraphrase Tolstoy: Each inauguration is risky, but each is risky in its own way,” said Michael Chertoff, who was secretary of homeland security under President George W. Bush and oversaw the department for President Obama’s first inauguration, in 2009.

“I can’t think of an inauguration that presented more security challenges than this one,” Mr. Chertoff said.

There were, of course, heightened concerns for the second inauguration of Mr. Bush, in 2005, the first presidential swearing-in to follow the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And in 2009, Mr. Obama’s inauguration was the first transfer of power in the post-9/11 era — and the first in which an African-American was taking the oath of office. Mr. Obama faced a rash of racist threats, as well as concerns about a terrorist plot that ultimately proved unfounded but sent the president-elect and top aides scrambling on the eve of his swearing-in.

Even so, Mr. Obama did not face the kind of large protests expected to greet Mr. Trump when he officially arrives in Washington. The 2009 crowd of nearly two million people, a record, included few, if any, protesters and did not lead to a single arrest, according to Christopher T. Geldart, the director of homeland security for the District of Columbia.

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